


The Traveler (or how Tenzou finds his way back to himself after the 4th Great Shinobi War)

by SparrowStrike



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Mokuton, recovering from trauma, talking to plants, tendaysoftenzo2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25702204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SparrowStrike/pseuds/SparrowStrike
Summary: Tenzou came back from the 4th war injured in more ways than one. He’d been a POW for months. He’d been experimented on for the second time in his life. He’d been used to build an army, had his very essence ripped out of his body, and then been cast aside like an empty husk.In the peace that follows, he leaves the village to figure out who he is now and what he wants in this life. He's known by different names as he travels the world, rebuilds his connection to his mokuton, and learns to forgive himself.Written for TenDaysOfTenzo2020 Day 2 (Traveler)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

The sun wasn’t all the way up, but it promised to be a warm day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky or so much as a hint of a breeze. 

_ Good walking weather,  _ the traveler thought. 

The streets of the village were quiet. The traveler, a young man with shaggy dark hair and cautious, dark eyes, took a deep breath and stepped out into the quiet streets. He was glad that there was no one to see him wind his way through the pre-dawn twilight. Had there been eyes on him, he would have felt the need to slink through the deepest of shadows, slow, careful, and quiet.

As it was, he moved as quickly as he could down the middle of the street, not caring about the noise his right sandal made as its sole skimmed the cobblestones. The limp slowed him down, but not as much as he had expected. 

The pain in his knee was just a dull ache and he didn’t try to run, as much as his heart ached to, in the hopes of it staying a dull ache. 

The main gates were in sight. In this time of peace, they were thrown open wide. Only 2 bored shinobi were watching where the road emerged from the boughs of the forest.

The traveler knew they wouldn’t stop him. They had no reason to. He was almost free.

“You really leaving without saying goodbye?” the voice came from just behind the traveler and he froze.

Slowly, the traveler turned. He was acutely away now of the way his right foot dragged and the bandages visible under his tank top. He’d decided to forgo all of his shinobi gear in favor of civilian clothes suited to summer travel. Now he felt exposed. “Yes. That was the plan,” the traveler said softly.

The owner of the voice, one Hatake Kakashi, looked like he’d just been punched in the face.

Kakashi blinked 2 dark eyes at the traveler and the traveler smiled despite having been caught. Kakashi looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. Kami knew the last time Kakashi slept through the night let alone slept in. His silver hair was a wild mess and the dark circles under his eyes were noticeably absent. Peace looked good on Kakashi.

“Why?” Kakashi asked. He sounded hurt.

The traveler winced. “I didn’t want a fuss or anyone to try and tell me I shouldn’t go.”

Under his mask, Kakashi opened his mouth to argue and then closed it. “You just got out of the hospital,” he said after a minute.

The traveler nodded. “I can’t stay here.”

“I’ll go with you,” Kakashi made the offer without hesitation and the other man knew he meant it. The village was safe, the war was over, and Kakashi’s sense of duty was fulfilled. In his mind, his friend needed him more than the village did now. 

The traveler wanted to say yes. They could pretend they were kids again, fish for their dinner in the mountain streams, and sleep under the stars. Without the weight of a mission or a war on their shoulders, the experience might actually live up to the nostalgia tinted memories. 

“There’s other people who can do my job,” Kakashi added.

The traveler shook his head and smiled at Kakashi. “You’re not getting out wearing the Hat that easily.”

“The kids would go with you. You could have your pick,” Kakashi offered.

The traveler laughed. “We both know the kids are an all or none deal. You’re not going to pry those 3 apart anytime soon and I need a break from being sensei.” Naruto and Sakura weren’t going to let the last Uchiha out of their sight again and Sasuke didn’t seem even remotely inclined to attempt an escape attempt even if the rest of the village treated him like a traitor. As long as he had the other two at his side, Sasuke walked with his head held high and dared anyone to say something to his face.

“Sai would go,” Kakashi argued. He already knew it was a losing battle.

“I know, but he’s happy here. He’s finally happy and with friends. I will not take him away from that.”

Kakashi nodded. He understood. “How long?”

The traveler shrugged. “Until I feel like me again? Until I feel like someone again? Until I figure out who I am now? Until the nightmares stop and the guilt doesn’t weigh on my every waking minute? Until I can use my justus again?” If his voice sounded a bit hysterical by the end, he didn’t care. He’d been a POW for months. He’d been experimented on for the second time in his life. He’d been used to build an army, had his very essence ripped out of his body and then been cast aside like an empty husk. He’d seen through the eyes of the things they’d made from him as they slaughtered innocent people, slaughtered his friends. He’d felt those things literally tear people apart like it was his hands. He had the right to be a little hysterical.

Kakashi nodded. “You’ve got 6 months. If I don’t hear from you, I’m putting you in the bingo book and sending every shinobi in the world out looking for you.”

The traveler laughed. “At the very least, I’ll send a letter.”

Kakashi smiled then, a real Kakashi smile with his eyes closed and little crinkles in the corners. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too. Don’t let them run you too ragged,” the traveler ordered. 

  
Kakashi snorted. 

They both lingered for a minute, staring, memorizing each other. 

Then, the traveler settled his hands on the backpack straps, adjusted the weight, and turned back towards the gate. He could feel Kakashi’s eyes on his back with every step he took.

The shinobi at the gate nodded to him. They called him a name that he barely recognized as his. He waved anyway.

One step at a time, he limped out of the village and into the shadowy darkness of the forest.

_ Who would Kakashi list in the bingo book?  _ The traveler wondered. 

_ Kinoe? Danzou’s perfect soldier corrupted by the Hatake, he’d left that name behind before he reached his teens.  _

_ Tenzou? The anbu, second member of Team Rho, the teenager who’d trusted one person in the whole world, jumped at shadows, and committed himself to trying everything. The traveler had left Tenzou behind when he turned 20. Tenzou had lived in the past, trying to make up for lost time and find the family he was ripped from before he’d every been Kinoe. _

_ Yamoto? The anbu captain, the sensei, the man who’d survived to replace Danzou Shimaru as head of the Elite Root anbu. Yamoto was a good shinobi. He was confident in his skills. He’d stepped out of the darkness of Root and the shadow of the Hokage whose DNA he shared. Yamoto was the first casualty of the 4th Great Shinobi War. _

The traveler decided it didn’t matter who Kakashi listed in the bingo book, none of them would be found.


	2. Haru

The further the traveler walked from the village, the lighter he felt. Sunlight slipped through the pine needles in golden beams. Birds flitted through the lattice work of branches overhead. Squirrels chased each other around the trunks and only paused their chattering to determine the traveler on the road wasn’t a threat. The air smelled clean and fresh.

Come early afternoon, it was still pleasantly cool in the shaded forest. The traveler stopped for a rest on the bank of a small stream. He settled himself stiffly on the bank, using his hands to help position his bad leg out in front of him.

The traveler leaned forward sipped from his water bottle and let himself relax in a why that he hadn’t done for months, not since before he was captured. His chakra buzzed through his veins and radiated from his skin like heat. It brushed against the life energy of everything around the traveler. He could feel the moss underneath him and the ants underneath it. The trees overhead seemed to lean towards the traveler. Their life energy was bright in the traveler’s mind. All it would take was a thought to reshape them, make them part of himself, and himself a part of them. He could cast his consciousness across the whole forest, feel the way it pulsed with life and power and memories uncountable.

The traveler flinched and yanked his chakra back from where it had begun to mingle with the plant life. He was shaking and his face was wet. The traveler raised his hand and felt the tears on his cheeks. Memories not his own flashed through his mind. _ The horde was moving underground. They could feel the life of the shinobi army overhead. The horde was hungry _ .

The traveler shook his head to drive off the thoughts, memories, whatever they were. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the edge of the stream and looked away quickly.

He’d avoided mirrors since he’d been rescued, his concept of his body was built on blurs and what he could see in the dark when he dressed himself or changed the bandages. All he wanted to know was that his skin remained his own and not the undead, white horror it had seemed to become when they ripped those monsters from him.

For a while, he’d thought his body was gone and his mind was trapped in one of the horde. 

Lady Tsunade said that all things considered his physical form had suffered little damage. He had been found malnourished and his muscles had atrophied from being bound in a cocoon of roots. He didn’t remember how exactly he acquired the broken ribs and shattered knee. They’d been mostly healed, all wrong a crooked, by the time he was rescued. They were the evidence that at some point, he’d fought or resisted. In a way they were a comfort.

The real damage was psychological. They’d taken his freedom, broken his mind, and turned the power in his blood into a thing of nightmares. Every part of himself that he liked had been corrupted. 

The traveler hauled himself back to his feet. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there. His joints had stiffened, so probably longer than he’d meant to. He’d been doing that a lot, losing himself in his thoughts and losing time. 

Lady Tsunade said it was a coping mechanism leftover from his captivity. 

One of the Yamanaka, offered to help. She was a medic and one of Tsunade’s students, but she was also well versed in her clan’s mind reading techniques. She’d thought she could untangle the knot of buried and half forgotten memories, perhaps help him fight the monsters in his mind.

The traveler refused. He knew those jutsu went both ways to a degree. He didn’t want them to hurt anyone else through him.

The traveler realized he’d lost himself again, standing on the edge of the stream. He forced himself to start walking again.

It was harder now. His knee throbbed and his whole body protested.

The pain made it easier in an odd way. The traveler lost himself in the exertion.

The sun slipped lower on the horizon, turning the dust the traveler kicked up golden. He’d meant to stop for the night in a small town a quarter of the way to the border with the Land of Stone. He was maybe a quarter of the way to his goal. He’d miscalculated how much his injuries would slow him down.

As the traveler started to keep his eyes open for a place to camp, he heard the rumble of a cart in the distance. 

The traveler decided if they were going his way, he would ask for a ride. If he slept on the ground tonight, he’d make even less progress tomorrow.

The cart came up on the traveler slowly. The old man in the driver seat called for his ox to stop and stared down at the limping traveler. “You need a ride, son?”

“You heading west?”

“Yeah. Making for home.”

“Any chance there’s a town on your way?”

“No, but I’ve got room at home if you need a place for the night.”

The traveler nodded. “I’ll take you up on that.” 

The old man motioned for him to climb into the cart.

It took the traveler a couple tries to heave himself into the back of the cart. He was past caring about his dignity.

The old man shook the reins and the ox plodded onward.

“You got a name, son?” The old man asked.

“Haru,” the traveler said after a hesitation.

The old man nodded. “I’m Hikaru. The Ox is Shiro.” 

Haru nodded a greeting and settled himself more comfortably in the cart. 

Hikaru noticed the way Haru lifted his leg with his hands and arranged himself with a grimace. 

“You hurt in the war?” Hikaru asked.

Haru frowned and Hikaru thought maybe he wouldn’t answer. 

“Yeah. Spent most of it as a POW. Shattered my knee when I was captured. It healed badly before I was rescued.” Haru didn’t look at Hikaru when he talked. He stared past the old man.

“I lost my boy to the fighting.”

Haru looked like he’d been hit. His face fell and then stared down into his lap, shoulders tensed like he was waiting for another blow.

Hikaru’s heart ached. He could see that the wounds ran deeper than a bum knee.

They didn’t talk again as the sunset and the fireflies came out. 

An hour after sunset, Shiro brought them to a small trade outpost just off the road. During planting season and harvest it was a bustling stop. Hikaru’s home sat halfway between Konoha to the east, the lowland cars to the North, and the river port to the south. You could make it to Hikaru and home in a day, so he carved out a living as the middleman. In the off seasons, he hunted, fished, and kept a small garden. It wasn’t an easy life, but he considered it a good one.

There were lights on in the house. “Go on,” Hikaru nodded to Haru. “My daughter Nariko and my wife Megumi should have dinner ready. They can show you where to put your pack and by they I’ll have Shiro settled in the barn and we can eat.”

Haru scooted himself to the edge of the cart and used his upper body to hold his weight when his feet first tentatively touched the ground. He took a shaky breath before letting go of the cart and limping towards the house.

The door opened before Haru could knock. A young woman with a heart shaped face and bright green eyes smiled at him framed by warm light. The smell of fresh baked bread came with her.

Haru’s stomach growled. The girl’s smile widened. “Mom! Dad brought home a guest,” she called into the house and stepped back out of the doorway. “Come in,” she said to Haru.

Haru stumbled over the door trim. Had the girl not been there to catch his arm, he would have fallen. 

The girl just flashed him another grin and heaved him back upright. She was stronger than she looked. “My name’s Nariko. What’s yours?” 

“Haru.” The name came out naturally this time. He’d been saying it over and over in his head during the cart ride. Haru for the season he’d set out in, for a new beginning, for a clean slate, for the strength to grow.

“I’ll show you to the guest room,” Nariko said brightly. The front entrance opened into a long hallway with a set of stairs to the second story. The kitchen was just inside the front door to the left though an open doorway and the dining room was to the right.

Haru breathed a sigh of relief when the guest room was on the ground floor, tucked under the stairs. He didn’t think I could have made it up the stairs. 

Nariko pointed out the bathroom across the hall and left Haru to get set down his stuff and wash up.

Haru surveyed the room. It was small, but much nicer than the cheap in he’d planned to stay at. The bedding smelled clean and when he sat on the edge of the bed it was soft. 

Haru left his pack in the guest room, washed his hands in the little bathroom, and retraced his steps to the front door. He could hear the soft clink of glass as someone set the table on the dining room. The question of who was answered when Nariko started to hum while she laid out silverware.

A quick peek into the kitchen showed Hikaru hugging the old woman Haru had seen through the window. She patted her husband’s shoulder before she pulled away and moved to get something out of the oven. 

“So where are traveling to and from?” Nariko startled Haru.

“Nariko, don’t bother our guest,” Hikaru called from the kitchen.

Nariko rolled eyes. “If I’m bothering him, I’m sure he’ll let me know,” she yelled back.

Haru snorted. She reminded him of Sakura.

Nariko looked at Haru expectantly.

“From Konoha and I’m heading west.”

“West where? The sunflower festival in Hanagakure isn’t for another couple weeks, but if you’re on foot it might take that long to get there.”

Haru’s mouth quirked up in a smile. “I’ll keep that in mind. I don’t really have a destination right now.”

Nariko’s eyes widened. “I am so jealous. Getting to just wander and explore the world is my dream.”

Hikaru and his wife,  _ Megumi _ Haru remembered, came through the kitchen door and shooed the younger pair towards the dining room.

Haru found himself steered towards a chair between Nariko and Hikaru and across the table from Megumi. His a plate heaped high with mashed potatoes, pot roast, and carrots was set in front on him.

Hikaru grabbed a roll out of the basket and passed it to Haru who took one with a nod of thanks before passing it on to Nariko. 

Haru’s head was spinning. He felt like he’d stumbled into a dream. The food was delicious, hot, and fresh. The little table was crowded. Megumi and her daughter were trading friendly insults. Outside it was dark, but inside everything was warm and bright.

When Nariko stuffed her mouth full of potatoes to buy time to think of a comeback, Megumi’s attention flickered to Haru. She had the same bright green eyes as her daughter. “So Haru,” Megumi regarded him across the table, “You from Konoha?”

Haru nodded. “Mostly. It’s where I grew up.” He looked down at the plate in front of him. “They took me in after the 3rd War.”

“And sent you off to fight in the 4th,” Megumi pursed her lips and shook her head.

“I volunteered.” It came out more defensive than Haru meant it to, but what had happened to him was his own fault not Konoha’s. Konoha wasn’t what it had been when he was a child. It was the sort of place he’d die to protect.

“Of course you did. Most everyone who could did,” Megumi soothed. She smiled at Haru, but her eyes were sad.

Haru remembered Hikaru said he’d lost his son in the war. No wonder the man had been so quick to bring home a stranger. Haru couldn’t imagine spending every night at this crowded little table and then one day for there to be an empty seat.

Hikaru cleared his throat in the silence. “I got a good price for the tea in Konoha and was able to pick up some seeds. Mostly corn, some squash.”

Megumi hummed thoughtfully. “It’ll take the supply chain a while to bounce back. We’ve got plenty of potatoes and we’ll have more when I’m done planting.”

“I saw a herd of elk on the ridge this morning,” Nariko mumbled with a mouthful of food.

Megumi gave her daughter a reproachful glare that Nariko just brushed off. 

“I’m handy with a bow,” Nariko explained to Haru. She gestured at the roast. “It’s my favorite sort of grocery shopping.”

Haru snorted. “Carrying it home’s got to be a pain.”

Nariko just laughed and launched into a description of her last hunting trip which turned into a crash course on the local geography. “There’s the most amazing waterfall about halfway up the mountain. It’s got to be a hundred feet high and it feeds this crystal clear lake. You have to fish at night, so they don’t see your shadow.”

Haru could almost see it.

When dinner was done, Haru helped to clear the table and followed Megumi into the kitchen. 

“Guests don’t do dishes,” the woman insisted and nudged Haru out.

Nariko and her dad were sitting on the front porch, watching the moon rise over the trees. 

Hikaru waved for Haru to join them. 

Haru sat a little bit away from the pair. The wood was weathered and rough against his palms as he leaned back and stared up at the stars. In the distance he could hear an owl calling. 

Hikaru watched Haru. The young man’s shoulders were loose and he looked at ease, half hidden in the dark. Hikaru guessed he was a couple years older than Nariko, 25 maybe? He kept his emotions guarded. He spoke casually about his past, and used the blunt words to dissuade further questions. 

In the light of the dining room, Hikaru had noted the scars that littered Haru’s visible skin and the bandages around his chest that were visible when he moved just right. He saw the way Haru’s ribs were a little too prominent and his cheeks a little too hollow, but he also saw the muscles across Haru’s back and the way he was able to melt into the space they left for him like he’d known them for years.

Hikaru had a feeling Haru wasn’t just another shinobi. Haru probably wasn’t his real name. When Hikaru had pulled up beside him on the road, the old man hadn’t been able to decide if Haru look like someone lost in the woods or someone purposefully making a run for freedom. Maybe he was both. Either way, he seemed a good sort.

Hikaru stood up. “Got to go check on the Mrs.”

“That’s dad speak for go steal a bunch more rolls,” Nariko said when the front door closed behind her father.

Haru chuckled.

“So why West?” Nariko asked.

Haru shrugged. 

“Seriously, did you flip a coin or what?”

“It’s silly,” Haru mumbled.

“Sillier than flipping a coin?”

“Shinobi would think so.”

Nariko groaned. “Is there a class on criptic non-answers that shinobi have to take? Every shinobi I’ve ever met is way too committed to the whole mysterious stranger gig.”

Haru winced. “Sorry. I’m not very good with people.” He ran a hand through his hair. It was longer than he remembered it being. “I picked west because I want to see one of those sunsets that people write bad poetry about.”

“You don’t have sunsets in Konoha?” Nariko sounded incredulous.

“Not good ones. Because of the way our valley sits, we lose the sun early behind the mountains and the trees. The prettiest sunset I’ve ever seen was on the far side of Stone Country where the continent ends in a cliff and the ocean starts. I wasn’t in a position to appreciate it then, so…” Haru trailed off and shrugged.

He didn’t mention that he’d almost died on that cliff, surrounded by the bodies of Danzou’s enemies with a gut wound that was just shallow enough to have not eviscerated him. He wondered if the gnarled pine tree that saved his life still stood or if the winter storms had knocked it into the sea. 

“The best sunset I’ve seen is up Mount Ishi,” Nariko nodded towards the nearest peak. A dark, starless part in the sky. “It’s not safe to climb all the way to the top without ropes and partner. Most of the time the peak is above the clouds, but on a clear day you can see all the way to Iwa with a pair of binoculars. My brother, Namiyo, helped me climb it for the first time on my 16th birthday. He always said he would go visit all the places we could see from up there.”

“He volunteered for the war?” Haru asked softly.

Nariko nodded. “We both did. The joint shinobi army stationed him with the long range attackers in the 9th division. I ended up on guard duty for the supply lines. Saw some fighting, but not much. Most of the 9th division was killed.”

Haru closed his eyes. He could hear the guilt in Nariko’s voice. 

“He took my bow,” Nariko whispered. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared into the night. “I was always the better shot, but he took my bow and I didn’t even try to argue. People aren’t deer. I was afraid I’d freeze.”

Haru didn’t realize he’d scooted closer to Nariko until his shoulder bumped into hers. “It’s not your fault,” he whispered.

Nariko nodded. “I know. Still hurts. I still miss him. Everything around here is going to be harder without him.”

They sat together in silence as the moon rose higher.

It was late when Haru and Nariko made their way back inside. Nariko climbed the stairs and waved goodnight to Haru. 

Hikaru and Megumi were sitting together in the dining room, deep in conversation. 

Haru knew it was rude, but he’d grown up in the anbu barracks. Eavesdropping was an instinctive activity, like breathing, and they made it easy. He leaned against the wall of the hallway and listened.

Money was tight and they didn’t expect the traders from across the sea to come this year, news that the war was over wouldn’t reach them before storm season. The seeds Hikaru brought home had been purchased with the last of their savings. They’d have to sustain themselves with their garden and whatever they could hunt or forage for in the forest. Half of the corn was moldy and the squash seeds were old.

Nariko could only do so much. 

“Do you think Haru would stay?” Megumi asked.

In the hallway, Haru’s breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t considered that could be an option. 

Hikaru made a noncommittal noise.

“I know he’s still healing, but an extra set of hands would be useful. He seems like a good kid, a little lost, but I don’t know that he’s ever had much of a home,” Megumi continued.

Hikaru sighed. “I don’t if he’ll stay. We can certainly ask. I get the feeling he’s running, but I don’t know if he’s running away from whatever’s behind him or towards something.”

Haru closed his eyes. He could see a life here. He and Nariko could hunt and fish. When he healed, they could climb that mountain and he could see a sunset like he’d set out to find. He could help set the table and learn to banter back and forth like Megumi and Nariko. He could tend the garden and never have to pick up a weapon again.

With the sort of stealth that was second nature to a shinobi, Haru slipped down the hallway, avoiding all the boards that creaked, and closed the door of the guest room behind himself.

Haru settled in the bed and let himself relax into sleep.

\---

Haru woke up with a scream on his lips and chakra surging across his skin. 

The wooden floor had grown a tangle of branches and pinned him against the mattress.

Haru gasped for air. Smears of blood and a too pale mockery of a man still filled his vision. The white Zetsu had wicked teeth, like the parianas Haru had once read about in a briefing for a mission in Waterfall, and Haru didn’t think he’d ever forget the way that think smiled down at him before sinking its hand into his chest and ripping out the mokuton.

With his chakra like this, Haru could feel the other 3 occupants of the house. They’re life forces were dimmed with sleep, but steady. He hadn’t woken anyone. Haru breathed a sigh of relief and didn’t let himself think about how much worse he could have done. Mokuton wasn’t a precision jutsu in its raw form. 

Haru fought the urge to yank his chakra back and disconnect from the world. He needed to get rid of the trees in the guest room and he needed to do something to make up for answering Hikaru’s question with an empty bed. 

Haru was running away.

Haru willed the trees back into flat boards, pulled their energy back into himself, and climbed out of bed with a groan. The bed had been wonderfully soft and his body didn’t want to leave.

Haru staggered out onto the front porch. The eastern sky was colored by the first faint fouch of purple. 

Haru left a small bag of coins on the porch and picked his way across the uneven ground to the small field by the barn. 

Every kind of plant felt different to Haru. He’d spent his life memorizing the texture and color of their lives. 

Haru pressed his palms to the ground, channeled his chakra into the soil, and shaped it. A row of corn sprouted, beside them came a row of peas, then a couple rows of carrots, 4 rows of different squash, and last, on the very edge of the field an apple tree burst out of the ground.

Haru funneled chakra to the plants until the apple tree was big enough to bear fruit this year and the vegetables were sturdy enough to survive a light spring frost.

When he cut the flow of chakra and stood up on unsteady legs, Haru surveyed his work. It was more than just the visible plants. The soil hummed with life, full of good bacteria, and micro flora. 

Haru waited for the wave of memories, the fear, and the nausea that came everytime he used his mokuton since his capture. It never came. He just felt tired and strangely at peace. It was odd, but with dirt on his hands, they finally felt clean. 

Haru took a deep breath and turned his eyes to the road. Every step in the predawn light felt like a step in the right direction. 


	3. Natsu

By the time the traveler reached Hanagakure on the edge of Fire Country he was calling himself Natsu and instead of pine trees the air smelled like sunflowers.

Natsu didn’t bother looking for a room in an inn. The sunflower festival was world famous and with the shinobi world at peace, the turnout was going to break records. 

Instead, Natsu found a small meadow just shy of where the first settlers in the area gave up trying to hack the forest into submission. 

He wasn’t the only one with the idea and the night was dotted with campfires that dimmed the stars overhead.

Natsu pitched his tent and ate a can of soup while sitting cross legged on his sleeping mat. His knee only bothered him now when the weather shifted towards rain. Weeks of walking had hardened his body, rebuilding muscles.

Voices carried on the still night air. Not far from Natsu’s campsite, a man was telling the story of the first sunflowers, a local legend as old as the Tailed Beasts.

Natsu hummed to himself and relaxed. 

The man was a good storyteller. His words painted pictures over the flickering shadows.

Natsu could see the night turn bright as day. Sundrops, fiery meteors, lit up the sky and leveled the mountain that had once stood here. Their fire spread and burned for 3 days and 3 nights, pushing back the Fox’s wild forest. When the fire faded on the dawn of the fourth day, the Hana Clan had stepped out of the woods to find the land transformed. The mountain was gone, reduced to sandy soil across a level plain. In place of dense, dark woods stood a sea of golden flowers. The Hana clan built a village here. Half the plain they used to grow wheat and the other half was for the sunflowers. Year after year the flowers flourished under their care. 

It was said that walking among the flowers brough good fortune and happiness. Tea from their petals could drive away the sorrows of the past. Seeds planted along the edges of the field would guarantee a good harvest. A lover met in the field would be true. A sachet made with dried petals, a single leaf, and seeds would bless your path and lead you home.

Natsu knew it was all superstition and legend. Ground rock didn’t make good soil. Sunflowers flourished in the same sort of soil as most other crops. The rest could be explained with the power of belief. Still, Natsu had to admit there was something magical about the story.

Natsu fell asleep to the distant babble of overlapping voices and woke with the first rays of morning sun.

Like everyone else, he made his way to the fields with the light of dawn. 

The field stretched over a full square mile. Golden flowers tilted their heads to face the sun. 

A priestess blessed the flowers and the travelers, then the crowd was allowed to walk the field.

There was a reverent, awestruck silence over the crowd. Towards the center, the flowers towered 7 feet high with blossoms a foot across. 

The bitter, green scent of the sunflower’s pollen and sap was overwhelming.  _ This is what alive smells like _ , Natsu thought and a grin broke out on his face. His heart beat fast and loud and he took off running through the field with a whoop.

Chakra crackled on Natsu’s fingertips, feeling more natural than it had in months, maybe even in years. The flowers he passed turned their faces to watch him. 

Natsu collapsed in the middle of the field and laid down on his back. The sky was heartbreakingly blue. The only sound was his own racing heart and the soft result of a breeze through the plants.

Natsu’s face was wet with tears, but he couldn’t stop smiling. He dug his fingers into the dirt and felt the flowers call to him.

Natsu let his mind wander their network of tangled roots. 

He felt it when a young man picked a small blossom and tucked it behind the ear of a pretty girl.

The flowers whispered their stories to Natsu. They were young, only sprouted this spring, but they had learned their history as seeds ripening on their parents the year before. An ancestral memory was written into their DNA. A thousand years of sunshine, thunderstorms, and a biting frost. Reverent hands that brought water on the dry years and walked the field pulling weeds, so that nothing would choke out the seedlings. Joy and love were written into the flowers’ DNA.

The sun crossed the sky and sank behind the distant rocky peaks of Iwa. The moon rose and painted the flowers silver.

Natsu just watched it all. The flowers welcomed him, shared their life energy with him, and he was neither hungry or thirsty. 

They wanted to know where a plant like him came from. His DNA was old, like theres.

He told them he was a hybrid. He didn’t have a history.

_ No _ , they said,  _ Even hybrids remember _ .

And he did. The mokuton in his blood hummed in satisfaction. Natsu wouldn’t call them memories. They were more like instincts, things written into the fabric of his being, how to breath, how to grow, how to become more.

Natsu told the flowers of faraway lands, of lonely battlefields, an ocean of saltwater, a sea of sand, rocky mountains like teeth that bit the sky. He told them of the hands that had tended to him, not all had been kind.

_ Strong _ , the flowers said and Natsu felt it in his bones. Such was the adaptability of a hybrid. 

_ Take us with you _ , the flowers begged.

Natsuo closed his eyes and memorized the feel of their lives. They would forever be a part of him. He could call them into being with a thought. Make them hybrids, like him, and plant them where no sunflower had ever grown before.

Pride and joy surged through the field. Natsu didn’t know if it came from him or the flowers.

Come morning, the priestess stood over Natsu. The man was asleep with a peaceful smile on his face and his fingers clutching the loamy soil.

Overnight, the flowers had turned their faces from the sun.

The priestess wondered who this man was to outshine the sun itself. He was young, not yet 30, and he carried scars that marked him as a shinobi. His hair was long, almost 2 his shoulders, but wild and shaggy. His clothes were travel worn, but well mended. The dark circles beneath his eyes were unphased by one night of good sleep.

The priestess pulled a sachet out of her pocket and set it on the sleeping man’s chest. With luck it would guide him to the home his heart longed for.

Natsu woke late and refreshed. He didn’t question the velvet pouch on his chest, just tucked it in his pocket and climbed to his feet. He thanked the flowers and turned to face the west.

Hanagakure would tell stories for years to come of the time the flowers turned to face the setting sun and bloomed until the first snow fell.


	4. Akari

The traveler trailed his fingers against the tree trunks as he passed. He’d seen birch forests like this once, but never had a chance to linger. The leaves were just beginning to change their color, the veins turning golden yellow.

The traveler decided to stay until the leaves finished turning. He wanted to see the forest in the splendor of fall. Growing up among Konoha’s pine trees, he’d dreamed of fall in a deciduous forest.

The traveler set up camp beside a small pond. The cattails had gone to seed, but the water lilies were still blooming.

A chorus of frogs filled the night with rough music.

The traveler spent his days with the forest. What looked like many trees was really only one. Each trunk was an offshoot of the same root system. The forest thought it might be the oldest thing left on earth. It remembered when the mighty mountains that shelter the Hidden Stone VIllage were raised in a primordial earthquake.

The forest had much wisdom to share with the man who spoke its tongue, but first it demanded his story. 

The traveler told it much the same as he’d told the sunflowers.

No, the forest said. I know the story of the world. I want to know the story of you.

So the traveler told it about waking into a nightmare, about seeing the distorted face of the man who stole him and made him through the glass of his testtube, about feeling the others who weren’t him but were him die, and about staggering out of the lab alone. 

The traveler told the forest about Kinoe who’d been a sapling, twisted and bent into the shape Danzou wanted him to grow. 

He told it about Tenzou who had broken the bonds and reached for the sky.

He told it about Yamoto who’d grown tall and strong only to be cut down.

He told it about the corrupted offshoots ripped from his body and how he lost himself. 

The forest held him close and replaced the visions of white Zetsu with a wall of white trunks and golden leaves. 

Look at the saplings, said the oldest of the trees. They see rocks I will never see. They will outlive me. They are not me, but they are me. If I die and they live, I do not die. If they grow stunted or sickly and die, I do not sicken and die. I am old and young, past and present, and so are you, KinoeTenzouYamotoZetsuHaruNatsuAkari. Sever the roots to the sick, mourn and remember them, but give yourself to the rest of the forest.

Akari nodded. 

You are what you choose to be.

\---

When the leaves began to fall, Akari left the forest. He walked with purpose. It wasn’t as easy as letting a root wither and rot, but everyday fought the Zetsu in his mind. He stripped away the things Orochimaru and Danzou had tried to graft to his soul.

At the base of the mountains that split the lowlands of Iwa from the high plateau and the sea Akari found a small village built around a hot spring.

People stared at the traveler. With both curiosity and distrust. His clothes were faded and patched and his sandals were worn almost all the way through the sole, but he didn’t look like the bandits that came down from the mountains to steal and torment the town. 

The traveler didn’t seem bothered by the eyes on him. He hummed to himself as he walked. His hair was past his shoulders and full of leaves and twigs. No one could tell if the plant life was woven in on purpose or if he’d lost a fight with the forest.

The man paid for a room at the inn and a bath at the hot springs with coin from Konoha, another oddity.

At the hot springs, the locals kept their distance from the traveler, but watched closer. He didn’t appear to carry any weapons.

The traveler was muscular and solidly built. He moved with an ease and grace despite favoring his right leg every so slightly. There was an aura around him that was both peaceful and unsettling.

Akari ate dinner at the inn. If he noticed the tense, quiet atmosphere, it didn’t deter him.

Behind the inn, was a gnarled old crab apple tree. After dinner, the traveler made himself comfortable against its trunk and metatated. At that point, the locals decided he had to be a shinobi even though he was unarmed and carried no indication of his affiliation. Only shinobi were this odd. 

“Hey mister.”

Akari opened his eyes. 

A boy, maybe 10, with muddy red hair and golden eyes was sitting in front of him. The boy rolled a crabbe apple between his palms. 

Akari waited.

“Are you a shinobi?” the boy asked.

“I was,” Akari said. He might still be one. He hadn’t decided, but there was no point in confusing the kid with possibilities.

The boy nodded. He stopped fiddling with the apple and stared Akari in the eyes. “How much would it cost to hire you for a job?”

“You should contact Iwagakure,” Akari said. He closed his eyes. 

“We can’t get to them. The bandits control the pass over the mountains. Going around will take months. We’ve tried sending messenger hawks, but they get shot out the sky.”

Akari tensed, but didn’t open his eyes.

“How much?” the boy demanded. “We don’t have much left, but if you kill the bandits you can take what they took.”

Akari’s hands gripped his knees tighter. 

The boys pressed his advantage. “They come out of the mountains every couple weeks and take what they want. First, they took everyone’s money. They took my mom’s wedding ring. Then they took the alcohol from the brewery. Now, they take at least half of whatever crops we manage to grow to feed their lazy asses and anything that happens to catch their eyes. They hurt people just for fun.”

Akari nodded and opened his eyes. 

The kid’s eyes were full of tears. “We tried fighting. There’s about 20 of them and they’ve got real weapons. Some of them know jutsus.”

Akari nodded again.

“Will you help us?”

“Yes.” Akari’s voice wavered slightly. The mokuton stirred in his veins. He could feel Zetsu’s hunger. He hadn’t fought since the war ended.

\---

Akari set off for the mountain before sunrise. He’d refused the offers of any payment or improvised weapons. “When the bandits are gone, send a messenger hawk to Kakashi Hatake in Konoha. All it needs to say is ‘I’m not dead yet. Still traveling’”

“How should it be signed?”

“Don’t worry about it. He’ll know it’s from.”

The villagers watched the traveler go. The little boy was the only one who seemed to think the traveler could do anything except die. 

\---

The bandits weren’t hard to find.

The traveler counted 18 of them. They were a ragtag band. Most of them appeared to be army deserters, genin and a pair of chuunin.

They blocked Arkari’s path and brandished their weapons.

Weeds. Let their blood water the roots and their flesh feed the plants.

Akari closed his eyes and the bandits laughed, thinking the ragged traveler in front of them was scared.

No, Akari thought. Not weeds. People. Enemies. Monsters.

Rock shattered as a forest erupted from the rocky ground. Branches grasped. Bones snapped. 

Akari shivered and turned away from naked trunks and bare branches. The white birch was splashed with red. The rush of joy that Zetsu felt when it killed didn’t come.

Akari felt no joy at killing, but he felt a sort of satisfaction. The village would be safe. It was a familiar sensation. KinoeTenzouYamoto knew it well. Haru had felt the same when that first row of corn began to sprout. Natsu felt it with the sunflowers, when he’d fallen in love with the power in his blood. 

Of course, Akari realized. KinoeTenzouYamotoHaruNatsuAkari have always been defined by the need to protect, to cultivate, to grow.

Akari withdrew the forest. He left a single birch at the top of the pass. It’s branches were bare, ready for the coming winter, and its DNA had been re-written for the rocky soil and bitter cold. 

The traveler continued down the path humming to himself as the clouds gathered overhead. Akari became Fuyu. The last of Zetsu died with the first snow flakes that settled in Fuyu’s hair.


	5. Fuyu

It was bitterly cold on the Stone Coast. 

The wind howled inland off the ocean, throwing freezing spray against the cliffs and coating everything on top of the cliffs in a layer of ice.

The air was so cold it burned Fuyu’s lungs with every breath. He’d arrived on the coast just as the first winter storm made landfall.

The trees along the coast grew almost horizontal, shaped by the wind. 

It was a desolate and barren landscape. 

Fuyu almost turned around. The slight weight of a velvet sachet in his pocket made him continue to put one foot in front of the other and lean his body into the wind.

The gnarled pine was still standing. Its trunk was twisted in an unnatural spiral and scarred over where it had taken the brunt of a slash from a broadsword.

Fuyu rested his hand on the tree and said his thanks as the day bled into night. There was no sunset tonight through the storm.

Fuyu looked the storm clouds in the eye and slammed his hands to the ground in challenge. 4 sturdy walls sprang up around him and the howl of the wind became distant.

Fuyu waited out the storm in his mokuton hut. It lasted almost a week. He wasn’t upset. It gave him time to think.

On the 5th day, Fuyu’s meditation was interrupted by the gnarled pin.

_ I remember you _ , it said slowly. It was old and alone here on this rocky outcropping. It hadn’t spoken to anyone since the last time Fuyu had been here. 

_ You saved me, _ Fuyu reminded it.

_ You called yourself something else then. _

_ I’ve had a lot of different names in my life. Some of them were never really mine. _

_ Tenzou.  _ The name was clear in the tree's consciousness.  _ We were Tenzou and we were proud of it. _

A rush of memories and emotions filled Fuyu. 

He’d been sent here to hunt a team of assassins with a contract on the Third Hokage. 

It had been the first mission he took after he left Root. The mission scroll was addressed to Tenzou, not Kinoe. In hindsight, he was sure Danozu meant for him to die here. He had refused to die. He had been low on chakra, unable to form his own mokuton construct, in desperation he had grasped the only other living thing on this spit of rock. 

The tree had been old already then, but it wasn’t any bigger than a sapling. It had been barely clinging to life when Tenzou woke it and poured the last of his chakra into it. 

Tenzou had been so young then. He didn’t understand the real power of the mokuton. He didn’t know how to hold it back. With that final desperate surge of chakra had come his will, his very soul.

The tree grew and twisted. It blocked a killing blow and ripped the rocks from beneath the assassins’ feet. They fell screaming into the hungry sea while the tree cradled the child safe in new branches until a silver haired boy who smelled like dogs and ozone came to rescue him.

_ We were so proud of our name. We were going to build a family. We were going to travel the world and talk to the plants everywhere we went. We were going to wake the trees, flowers, and even the grass so that they would help us protect, help us grow! _

Fuyu nodded. He’d forgotten that. He’d forgotten the things he used to dream as most people do when they start to grow up. 

When the storm passed, Fuyu lowered the mokuton walls. The sun was low in the sky. The sea was calm and the icy, pale blue of Kakashi’s chidori.

Fuyu sat in the twisted branches of the gnarled oak. The sky went from a brittle blue to a gentle lavender and then warm pink. As the sun sank lower. Pink became red and orange and gold. When the sun slipped below the horizon, it flashed green and the sky bled every color of the rainbow.

Fuyu lingered at the cliff a few more days. He found his reflection in an icy puddle. His skin was tanned and weathered from months on the road, sleeping rough, and chasing the sun. He could see no trace of Zetsu in himself, nor Danzou’s soldier, nor Orochimaru’s perfect creation. 

He cut his hair with a kunai that felt a little bit foreign in his hand. He left it about 2 inches long, shaggy, but manageable. 

When the next storm appeared on the horizon, the traveler turned his back to it. In his hand he held a twig with a cluster of pine needles at the end. It began to sprout roots as the traveler shouldered his pack.

Tenzou started for home.


	6. Tenzou

It was early spring when the border guards raised the alarm and summoned Kakashi to the main gate. 

The Sixth Hokage arrived ready for a fight, the seals for a lightning jutsu already half formed.

When he saw the man standing at the gate, Kakashi froze.

“Hey,” the traveler said. He smiled softly.

Kakashi’s heart wasn’t sure if it wanted to stop or beat its way out of his chest. The threat of a fight had flooded his system with adrenaline and he told himself that’s why he was shaking. “It’s been a year. You don’t write. You don’t stop at any known village. I thought you were dead,” Kakashi’s voice came out raw.

The traveler shrugged. “I had some friends send a letter.”

“They spelled my name wrong, it didn’t have a name or description, and that was 5 months ago!”

The guards were watching the exchange cautiously. The traveler said his name was Tenzou. Kakashi seemed to agree with that, but they’d met Tenzou-- Yamoto as he’d been called then. The man in front of them wasn’t him.

The traveler was wearing civilian clothes of mixed styles (Iwa style shoes and trousers, a tunic and like the Western part of Fire Country favored, a cloak of identifiable origin, and scarf that appeared to be hand knit), all shades of green and brown. He wasn’t wearing any shinobi weapons. There was a bonsai tree poking out of his pack and his shaggy brown hair had a couple leaves in it. The overall impression was of an eclectic individual. 

The guards would have let him in if it hadn’t been for his chakra. It seemed to radiate off him. There wasn’t so much of a breeze, but the grass swayed and reached for him. The air around him felt alive. The guards had noted his raw power and made the call.

Tenzou winced. “Sorry about that. I was still figuring things out.”

The silence stretched and then Kakashi smiled. “It’s good to have you back, Tenzou.”

Tenzou beamed. 

“Hokage-sama…” one of the guards said softly.

“Can you turn down the nature thing a little bit?” Kakashi looked at Tenzou imploringly. “You’re scaring the nice anbu.”

Tenzou laughed and ran a hand through his hair, brushing out the leaves. “Sorry about that. I forgot.” He pulled his chakra back so that it stayed in his skin.

The grass returned to its normal position. The branches overhead shifted back towards the sky. No one would think anything of it for the next several years, until a very foolish man tried to kidnap the Seventh Hokage’s infant son. The anbu would find the baby napping in a cradle of grass outside the gates. They wouldn’t find the kidnapper, but the trees did seem to grow a little taller that year.

Tenzou stepped through the gates and no one stopped him.

Kakashi met him halfway, clasped his arm and pulled him into a hug. “Bring back any souvenirs from your time communing with nature?” 

Tenzou pulled a little velvet pouch out of his pocket and put it in Kakashi’s hand. “I also brought a tree.”

Kakashi smiled and held the pouch tight. “I saw the tree. It’s a very nice tree.”

“No it’s not. It’s sassy.”

Kakashi laughed and ruffled Tenzou’s hair, like he’d done when they were still kids. “You’ve definitely spent too much time talking to plants.”

Tenzou just smiled. He was home. 


End file.
